Karnataka Udyog Mitra

Operational approvals are managed by the Managing Director, Dodda Basavaraju, with escalation to the Chairman, Smt. Gunjan Krishna, IAS, who also serves as the state's Commissioner for Industrial Development. High-value or politically significant proposals typically require sign-off from the Industries Minister, M.B. Patil. KUM's authority derives from its mandate as the state's single-window clearance body, but final statutory approvals — environmental clearance, land-use change, building permits — rest with the relevant line departments that KUM coordinates.

No. KUM is not a fund, sovereign wealth vehicle, or development finance institution. It does not deploy capital, take equity stakes, or issue grants. Its function is purely facilitative: connecting investors to state infrastructure (land, power, water), expediting regulatory clearances, and providing post-approval liaison. Investors must bring their own capital or secure financing from commercial banks and development finance institutions independently.

KIADB is KUM's most critical partner agency, responsible for land acquisition, development, and allotment for industrial projects that KUM facilitates. While KUM handles the investor-facing clearance process, KIADB controls the physical land bank — surveyed, litigation-cleared parcels across Bengaluru Urban, Rural, and South districts, as well as specific parks like the Aerospace and Defence Park near Kempegowda International Airport. The two agencies operate in tandem: KUM shepherds the approval, KIADB delivers the ground.

KUM's public facilitation portfolio spans advanced manufacturing, aerospace and defense, electronics system design, IT/ITeS, renewable energy, biotechnology and life sciences, and automotive electrification. The state's 2025 investor summit confirmed significant commitments in renewable energy equipment manufacturing and semiconductor assembly. KUM does not explicitly exclude sectors but operates within the state's published industrial policy, which offers sector-specific incentives for anchor-unit investors in electronics, aerospace, and cleantech.

KUM's structural advantage is its institutional linkage to KIADB's land bank, which reduces the site-selection-to-possession timeline that in competitor states often involves protracted negotiation with multiple landowners. While Tamil Nadu's Guidance Bureau and Maharashtra's MIDC offer comparable single-window services, KUM's integration with the Invest Karnataka brand and its IAS-led governance layer — providing bureaucratic continuity across political cycles — is frequently cited by industrial users as a decision-making factor for Bengaluru-bound projects over Chennai or Pune alternatives.

Invest Karnataka is the state's external-facing investment promotion brand under which KUM operates. KUM is the execution agency; Invest Karnataka is the marketing and convening platform used for domestic and international roadshows, sector-specific investor roundtables, and the biennial Global Investors Meet. The brand provides the pipeline; KUM handles the post-lead clearance and facilitation.

Yes. KUM's single-window portal and officer-assigned facilitation model are designed for foreign investors establishing a presence in India, including those without an existing domestic subsidiary. The agency assists with entity incorporation guidance, GST registration, and Industrial Entrepreneurs Memorandum filing alongside site-selection and utility connection coordination. Roadshows in Japan, South Korea, and Germany explicitly target first-time Karnataka entrants across automotive, electronics, and precision engineering sectors.